NSW election: Newtown MP Jenny Leong first Green to get more than half the primary vote

Re-elected Green Jenny Leong is on track to be the party’s first MP to record more than 50 per cent of the primary vote in any election at federal, state or territory level.

Newtown Greens MP Jenny Leong. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Re-elected Green Jenny Leong is on track to be the party’s first MP to record more than 50 per cent of the primary vote in any election at federal, state or territory level.

Yet while the Greens are getting stronger in their strongholds, their appeal across the rest of the state has waned.

With almost half of the vote in the inner-west Sydney seat of Newtown counted, Ms Leong had almost 56 per cent of the primary vote after picking up a swing of 11.5 per cent.

Ms Leong has eclipsed Adam Bandt as the most popular Greens MP in the country after surpassing the federal leader’s primary vote of 49.6 per cent at last year’s federal election.

A strong campaign for rent­ers’ rights and dedication to “do right by the community” are what catapulted Ms Leong’s success, she said.

“What we’ve seen in Newtown is a recognition that the Greens are not scared to put the community’s needs and priorities on the agenda, above the needs of people like property developers,” she said.

“It’s clear people respond when you are doing the work ­locally and working day in and day out with people who have been mistreated by the gov­ernment.”

While Ms Leong enjoyed a large jump in her primary vote – mostly due to the fact that there was only one micro-party candidate on the ballot this election, compared with four in 2019 – as did fellow re-elected Greens member Tamara Smith in Ballina (up more than 8 per cent), the party collectively went backwards in the other 91 lower-house seats.

Ballina MP Tamara Smith. Picture: Suze McLeod

The Greens’ primary vote overall rose 0.5 per cent but after stripping out their successes in Newtown and Ballina, the minor party recorded a swing of minus 0.5 per cent in the rest of the state.

Ms Leong avoided a question on why support for the party declined across most of the state, saying: “What we know is that the Greens and independents who have been returned to parliament have been returned with stronger support.

“A change in the political landscape means the support for major parties is in decline and the support for a progressive cross bench is growing.”

The Greens’ hopes of retaining a third seat in parliament is still in doubt, with new Balmain candidate Kobi Shetty ahead of Labor’s Philippa Scott by 2.2 percentage points with 44 per cent of the vote counted.

The party’s primary vote in the inner-west Sydney seat has fallen by more than 1 per cent after the retirement of the party’s first NSW lower-house MP, Jamie Parker, who served for three terms.

The most successful Greens primary vote at state level outside NSW was the 45.2 per cent that Lidia Thorpe secured at the 2017 Northcote by-election in Victoria.

After being defeated at the state election the following year, she entered federal parliament as a Greens senator but quit the party earlier this year to sit as an independent in protest over the party’s position on a voice to ­parliament.

Greens MP Tim Read was elected with 43.6 per cent in Brunswick at last year’s Victorian election.

The other three Greens in the federal lower house of parliament relied heavily on preferences at last year’s election, with Max Chandler-Mather winning 34.6 per cent of the primary vote, Elizabeth Watson-Brown 30.2 per cent and Stephen Bates, who finished third on first preferences, securing 27.2 per cent.